Thanks for that info re what it is. It should help the OP.

However it seems possible there is master of some description in the garage. In which case it should still be safe to replace the hall one with a filtered extension as I suggested for the longer term.

(Will the test socket be in the right place anyway for an NTE5A?)

I've just been over there to take a look at it all and the cabling was rather reminiscent of the machine Alan Turing built to crack the enigma code. There is a second phone (not DECT) upstairs in the main bedroom, though nothing I could see in the garage.

At this point I decided to play chicken and not remove any faceplates, working on the assumption that it should still work and it might be better to try it as it is, before pulling everything to bits. I had a plan to leave the Sky router plugged in the lounge, so he could keep using the internet this evening with the Vodafone router ready to kick in as soon as it switched over.

In the event, we lost the internet entirely from the moment I attached the Vodafone router via the micro-filter in the hallway and Sky clearly didn't like that, even if the Sky router was still plugged in and switched on. We ended up removing the Sky router entirely and I changed the micro-filters to those supplied by Vodafone, so I guess we'll have to wait and see now. At the moment he has the phone, but no internet as expected.

All the settings are configured in the Vodafone router, plus I've setup wifi on the TV, freesat and computer with a strong signal. Given that he's switching from ADSL to fibre I'm guessing somebody will need to visit the box opposite his house, rather than just flicking a switch at the exchange, so it could be later in the day before it goes live. Vodafone sent through a text message confirming everything was on track for tomorrow and I'll go there again at some point for sure to check everything.

It'll work.

Everything would stop working if you had two powered-up routers connected. If the Sky didn't come back with turning off the Vodafone one, that is surprising. But I gather your prime purpose was to have it all set up ready for Vodafone.

I hope the upstairs phone is on a filter! A Sky one would be fine.

Longer term I still advise checking to find the master and remove the bell wire on T3 at it.

There is a possibility that there is a junction box on the incoming line before the master, feeding both the known sockets separately, rather than the master and the master feeding the extension. That could be really bad news. It would be what is called a "bridge tap". Again, the FTTC will still work, but there could be a lot of errors that might cause DLM to really clobber the connection speed.

Does your Dad normally turn his router off at bedtime? Normal practice is to leave it on, but again it's not a disaster if he does.

I did try switching off the Vodafone router, but Sky didn't return immediately and since the main point was to set up everything for Vodafone I wasn't too concerned. One oddity is that the Vodafone router was picking up the data rate of 18mbps for the current connection, so presumably making some sort of contact there, even though it won't work.

Yes the upstairs phone is on a filter, though I swapped out the old one for a new one from Vodafone. I've always told him to keep the router running 24/7 so he leaves it on full-time. The cable in the lounge has been left with no micro-filter plugged in, since there is no connecting device at this point and I assumed (hoped) that is OK, but if needs be I'll plug a micro-filter in there as well.

Longterm I'll have a better look at it all, but right now I just want get him online and hopefully with decent speeds. The nearest BT box is literally opposite his house on the other side of the road, so from that point of view he's perfectly placed and that should help with a less than perfect setup inside the house.

In reply to a post by charlestown:

The cable in the lounge has been left with no micro-filter plugged in, since there is no connecting device at this point and I assumed (hoped) that is OK, but if needs be I'll plug a micro-filter in there as well.

Just be sure that no devices are directly connected to that extension - generally a maximum of four micro filters per line is recommended.

Edited by 4M2 (Mon 02-Apr-18 19:45:24)

There is definitely nothing connected to that extension at the moment, but I'll add a micro-filter tomorrow just in case we need it at some stage.

At my own house I have the modern mk 4 Open Reach faceplate fitted last year and I've never added micro-filters to the other faceplates with connected phones, but I gather that is acceptable, unless I've completely misunderstood how this should be done. My speeds are good and the phones work fine.

Were there previously 3 micro filters in use before you made the lounge extension redundant?

In your house the voice extensions are filtered from the Mk4 filtered faceplate, they don't carry the broadband signal only the voice frequencies. If you didn't have a Mk4 filtered faceplate, i.e. extensions terminated at an unfiltered standard NTE5 faceplate, then you would have to use micro filters at each extension socket because the extensions are carrying both the broadband frequencies and the voice frequencies. For devices that only use the voice frequencies the broadband frequencies must be filtered off.

In reply to a post by 4M2:

Were there previously 3 micro filters in use before you made the lounge extension redundant?

Yes, but that third was connected to the router in the lounge that is no longer there. The other two are each connected to a phone.

You now have an easy birthday/Christmas present option. Buy him a phone for the lounge!

OK, you had that before, but the place might have looked cluttered with the router there as well.

Regarding micro filters you might find this interesting http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/splitters.htm